Kevin Gerhart padded his bracelet count with a fourth-career victory when he shipped 2021 WSOP Event #62 $1,500 PLO8 for $186,789 after outlasting a field of 725 runners. Cole Ferraro was a runner-up two weeks earlier but finally broke through to the winner's circle as the last player standing out of 3,916 entrants in WSOP Event #61 $600 Deepstack Championship for $252,491. Also, Finland's Eelis Parssinen binked WSOP Event #64 $5,000 Mixed NL/PLO and outlasted 579 runners for his first bracelet.
Three more events and three more bracelets were awarded at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas last night at the 2021 World Series of Poker, while the $50K Poker Players Championship plays on. Bracelets were awarded in Deepstack, PLO8, and Mixed NL/PLO and we had a couple of first-time winners once again.
2021 WSOP Event #61 $600 Deepstack Championship attracted 3,916 runners and a prize pool that fell short of $2 million. The top 588 places paid out. Notables who cashed in the top 100 included Nic De Bari, Luke Richard, Ping Liu, Jacob Lewis, Samy Boujmala, Xach Peay, Barry Shulman, Mark Seif, Steve Bruckner, Jean-Francois Alexandre, Giancarlo Santolin, Sam Taylor, Lee Cox, Nick Palma, Florian Dietrich, and Allyn Shulman.
The final table included Cole Ferraro, Sami Rustom, Sean Dunleavy, Bart Lybaert, Richard Dixon, Edgardo Rosario, Xiangdong Huang, Ruben Chappell, and Ronald Slucker. Belguim's Bart Lybaert went deep but missed out on a bracelet when he busted in fourth place.
Cole Ferraro and Sami Rustom were heads up for the bling with Rustom unable to land a knockout blow. He led Ferraro back into the mix and he rallied back to pull off a comeback victory. Just two weeks earlier, Ferraro had another deep run that fell short of his goal to win a bracelet when he took second place in WSOP Event #22. But he did not squander his second opportunity in a fortnight with a big victory worth $252,419.
Kevin Gerhart is no stranger to getting his photo taken at the tail end of a long night playing poker at the Rio. At WSOP Event #62 $1,500 PLO8, 725 runners took a shot at the cash, bling, and glory. The prize pool was worth $967,875 with 109 places earning a cut of the cheesecake. Notables who went deep and cashed in the PLO8 donkament included Kathy Liebert, Adam Owen, Nathan Gamble, Ray Henson, Kelly Kim, Chip Jett, Andrew Yeh, Mike Matusow, Maxx Coleman, Robert Mizrachi, Andrew Kelsall, Scott Baumstein, Ari Engel, and Frankie O'Dell.
The final table for Event #62 included Kevin Gerhart, Dustin Dirksen, Matthew Kaplan, Sterling Lopez, Alexandr Orlov, Roman Hrabec, Michael Trivett, and Dylan Wilkerson. Gerhart and Dirksen were heads-up for the bling, but Gerhart was the last one standing in PLO8. Dirksen earned a runner-up payout worth $155K. Not too shabby, eh? Gerhart slapped a fourth bracelet on his wrist and fondled a stack of cash worth $186,789.
2021 WSOP Event #64 $5,000 Mixed NL/PLO went deep into the evening before Eelis Parssinen emerged as the last player standing. Eelis Parssinen rarely plays tournaments and it was a bit of a surprise to see him grinding at the WSOP. He's usually spotted at high-stakes online tables playing under the online moniker EEE27. But it's always good to catch a superstar cash-game specialist go the distance in Sin City.
Event #64 $5,000 Mixed NL/PLO attracted 579 runners and a prize pool worth $2,670,638. Only the top 87 places paid out. Notables who went deep and cashed in the Mixed NL/PLO included Greg Dyer, Stefan Schillhabel, Jason Somerville, Amnon Filippi, Chino Rhem, Tommy Le, Dan Zack, Avi Cohen, Dan Smith, Vlad Darie, Johnny Bax, Mike Watson, ANton Wigg, Jeff Hakim, Erik Seidel, Romain Lewis, Maxx Coleman, Jimmy Tran, Sam Chartier, Chris Putz, and Michael Noori.
The final table in Event #64 included a pair of players from Finland including Eelis Parssinen and Joni Jouhkimainen. Also going deep were Noah Bronstein, Ezra Abu Gazal, David Prociak, Joni Jouhkimainen, Kyle Arora, Niklas Astedt, and Vikranth Anga. Niklas Astedt missed out on the bling when he bowed out in seventh place.
Jouhkimainen busted in fifth place, but Finland and the USA slugged it out for bling with Eelis Parssinen and Noah Bronstein as the final two players. Bronstein could not pull off the comeback and he busted in second place, which paid out $337,216. Parssinen banked $545,616 for the victory and one the premier cash-game players in the world added a bracelet to his collection.
2021 WSOP Event #64 $5,000 Mixed NL/PLO Final Table
Buy-in: $5,000
Entrants: 579
Prize Pool: $2,670,638
Payouts: 87
Final Table Results:
1. Eelis Parssinen (Finland) $545,616
2. Noah Bronstein (USA) $337,216
3. Ezra Abu Gazal (USA) $239,321
4. David Prociak (USA) $172,332
5. Joni Jouhkimainen (Finland) $125,940
6. Kyle Arora (USA) $93,425
7. Niklas Astedt (Sweden) $70,367
8. Vikranth Anga (India) $53,824
